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Mission

Educating, connecting and inspiring emerging and established leaders since 1997.

Humanity in Action, Inc. is a New York city-headquartered international non-profit organization that supports democracy, pluralism and human rights through unique educational programs for college students, recent graduates and emerging leaders.

There are students standing around a round table to register for an event. The woman on the left is holding pens, the woman in the middle is smiling and arranging the table and the man on the right is writing his name on a piece of paper, learning forward. The woman on the left is white and wearing a light coloured shirt, the woman in the middle is a black woman with braided hair and wearing a black dress and the man on the right is a black man with a white shirt on.

We inspire

We inspire civic engagement for advancing social equity, responsibility and justice.

We educate

We educate tomorrow’s leaders on past and present human rights challenges through critical historical as well as contemporary inquiries and cross-cultural dialogue.

We connect

We connect an ever-growing international community committed to strengthening democracy, human rights, and pluralism.

Seeing beyond the realities our tribes want us to see

Through our work:

  • We affirm the importance of strengthening democratic values.
  • We foster environments in which individuals of diverse backgrounds and identities can engage openly and respectfully with contentious and challenging ideas and each other.
  • We support a vision of pluralistic societies that embrace differences and negotiate their boundaries through constructive political, social and personal dialogue and relationships.
  • We build a multinational, intergenerational community of emerging and established leaders who share the Humanity in Action values.

 

We believe that an important test of a genuine democracy is how it advances social equity and pluralism. We strengthen the commitment of our community to democratic values and foster their knowledge around past and present human rights challenges.

 

Past, Present and Future:

The intellectual touchstone for Humanity in Action, founded in 1997, has been the study of acts of resistance—and lack thereof—during the Second World War and the Holocaust.

Since Humanity in Action was founded with a focus on the 1943 flight and rescue of the Jews in Denmark during the Holocaust, we have grown conceptually, intellectually and geographically.

These events raise critical questions:

Why do some people resist while others remain bystanders? What binds those who recognize the need to resist? How are acts of resistance influenced by national and historical contexts?

Since Humanity in Action was founded with a focus on the 1943 flight and rescue of the Jews in Denmark during the Holocaust, we have grown conceptually, intellectually and geographically. Our scope has expanded to include the legacies of American slavery and the Jim Crow era; colonialism and migration; peace building and transitional justice in the Balkans; transitions from authoritarian to democratic forms of government in post-communist societies to other human rights challenges in Europe and the United States.